An observer of Fiji politics says the Fiji election will mostly be a battle of personalities and leadership.

Three parties and one proposed party have now confirmed who will lead them in the September polls – with the Labour Party still to confirm Mahendra Chaudhry after his conviction last week.

Auckland University’s Steven Ratuva says despite Labour being in a leadership crisis, there is now a core line-up of capable leaders for people to choose from who could be described as “superstars” in their own field.

Dr Ratuva says the new electoral system puts even more pressure on leaders to perform than in the past.

“First of all you only have one constituency and secondly voters will have to vote for only one person and that’s where the party leader’s popularity comes in.

“So in terms of just attracting voters to a particular party you need somebody to be a superstar to solicit the votes. That’s the whole psychology behind this electoral system.”

The People’s Democratic Party has elected former union chief Felix Anthony as its leader, former economics professor Biman Prasad is the leader of the National Federation Party, the indigenous chief Ro Temumu Kepa heads Sodelpa and the incumbent prime minister Rear Admiral Frank Bainimarama leads the Fiji First party, which is awaiting registration.

A former Labour Party senator who wants to be a part of the proposed Fiji First party headed by Bainimarama says the regime backed party won’t get any special treatment.

Bijai Prasad, who had a falling out with the Labour party in 2007, has been named in the Fiji First party line-up as a vice president.

Prasad says the 2006 coup was necessary and the regime has implemented policies which encourage greater racial equality.

Prasad says they will be subject to the same strict criteria other parties had to go through.

“That’s applied across the board, even when we went for registration I had to declare all my personal assets, my marital status, so it’s for everybody, not for a selected few.”

Prasad rejects calls that Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum should resign as Minister for Elections now he’s been appointed as secretary general of the proposed party.

He says everything Sayed-Khaiyum has done is open to scrutiny and doesn’t believe there’s any risk of election rigging or foul play.

Fiji’s National Federation Party has called for the immediate resignation of Sayed-Khaiyum who is also the attorney general and the holder of several other portfolios.

The NFP says by becoming an office holder in the regime’s proposed party, Sayed-Khaiyum has compromised his position as minister.

It says the Political Parties Decree bans trade unionists from the elections by classifying them as public officers although they are funded privately through union members.

The party says while Sayed-Khaiyum preaches the rest of the country to walk the moral high ground, he violates these principles with impunity.

It says the September elections will lose all semblance of being free, fair and credible, if Sayed-Khaiyum continues to hold both the position of minister in charge of elections and general secretary of a political party.

The Labour Party has also called for his resignation.

The European Union’s Ambassador to the Pacific says the only way the EU can lift restrictions on Fiji is if it’s allowed to carry out some sort of assessment of the elections.

Andrew Jacobs says they haven’t received a formal invitation from the Fiji government to send observers to the planned elections in September.

Jacobs says they’ve been talking with Fiji about how they can provide support in order to assess the credibility of the elections.

“One thing that’s very important for the European Union is to be able to lift the restrictions that we currently have in place on government to government development cooperation that we’ve had in place since 2007 and in order to lift those restrictions we’ll need to make sure that there has been a fully credible electoral process.”

Jacobs says the EU is pleased international observers have been invited, with Fiji recently asking Australia to head the international observer group.

The Melanesian Spearhead Group will be sending observers while the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat says it so far has not been invited.